When looking at the current world of work, the question quickly arises why many “normal office and screen workplaces” have not found their way into the mobile or home office. The transition to a home office or the changeover to a mobile workplace should be easy: There are probably hardly any employees who do not have an Internet connection at home in one way or another. Devices such as notebooks should also be widespread. In principle, “mobile work” from your own home should be quick and easy.

Home Office and “Mobile Working” Are Different Things.

Unfortunately, the terms mobile working and home office are often mixed up: “After all, a mobile employee can also be at home and work with his notebook” is a joint statement. If you ignore the technical differences, mainly trading unions, IHK, and lawyers vehemently speak out against this mixture.

They describe colloquially subsumed under home office, then technically with the somewhat antiquated term “telework.” The most important difference: According to the workplace ordinance, such a teleworking station is ” a permanently set up computer workstation in the private area of ​​the employee.” In addition, there is an agreement on weekly working hours and the duration of this facility. The company is then also responsible for setting up this workplace.

It’sIt’s different with mobile work: the workplace moves with the employee – he can sit at home and in a coffee shop or on the terrace of a hotel. In these cases, the workplace ordinance does not apply. That is why many companies insist on talking about mobile working, even if they send their employees to the “home office” in principle.

Challenges For Technology

One of the most significant challenges that the “new work” from the home office confronts both the IT specialists in the company and the employees in their homes is the connection to the Internet, which is available to the employees. Even if the company equips its “external” specialists with the latest IT technology and provides you with complex VPN, such as technology, a weak, unreliable Internet connection can quickly destroy any hope that employees will work the same way they would office. 

Home Office In Focus

Cloud solutions offer another way into the corporate network: They are already used by most companies today. Many users are already using solutions such as Dropbox or OneDrive in one way or another. If the employees in the company already use solutions such as Microsoft 365, they can usually continue to use them very quickly from the home office. Suppose a correspondingly good, stable connection is available. In that case, companies can use Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) solutions to provide their users with complete Windows or Linux desktops, which the user can then access via the Internet. To be available. He then works in the browser or with a particular client, ideally shielded from his home environment.

Communication: From “Alone” To “Perpetual Video Conference”

At first glance, it may seem nonsensical to talk about changed communication concerning work in the home office: After all, we communicated via email and telephone even before the pandemic. Video conferences also took place before that time – although perhaps not at the current frequency.

Particularly in isolation caused by remote work, targeted communication between employees and between home office workers and the company is of great importance. So it is not enough to equip the colleagues who are now working externally with the right technology by using remote work control software but to use the communication channels intensively – in both directions. Contact with the team, colleagues and other employees mustn’t be limited to a daily video conference limited: All employees in the home office must be able to communicate immediately and directly with other team members in case of doubt without them having to wait long for a response to an email message. In many cases, only a face-to-face conversation will help. To do this, IT must be able to provide as many channels as possible.

It is solutions like Slack that enable and facilitate communication in the team at the level of chats and corresponding channels. The advantage of communication via email is that a kind of direct conversation or discussion is conducted. Indeed, such email applications in the business environment will not cause the death toll, even if companies like Slack and Asana postulate this repeatedly. Still, it can be a goal to get older employees used to it, with chat tools and Messenger applications actively communicate.

Also Read: What Is The SaaS Model

Home Office And (Once Again) Shadow IT.

The security requirements for working from home do not differ from those that (should) also apply in the company. Mostly “confidentiality”, “integrity” and “availability” are mentioned as goals of the security measures. But it is understandably much easier for the IT team in charge to set a goal such as confidentiality (i.e., the protection of information, data and other IT resources from unauthorized access) in the protected company network than on possibly even private computers of the users in the home office to reach.

The so-called shadow IT is a big problem: The IT employees usually already know this from their daily work in the company, because there, too, the employees use their notebook or tablet from time to time to access the company network or even to send company data (if possible via a private email account). But in these situations, the IT team can usually quickly track down and stop the use of unauthorized devices, applications, and services. But what users use in the home office, they cannot promptly determine or even prevent.

Sixty-three percent of those surveyed stated that they access documents and services of their employer with remote end devices. Still, 58 percent admitted to saving or transferring work data on personal USB sticks. Finally, 55 percent of respondents said they use private email or file-sharing services in the cloud for work purposes. Thus, for IT professionals working remotely and using digital workstations, the following still applies: “Security, security and once again security.”

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Defining the guiding principles

The bond between trust and being transparent

Working remotely was very strange for the workforce to adapt to permanently until the normal situations rebound again. There might be many issues that the employees might be going through, which can affect the quality of the work that is being done. So it is very important to ensure the bonding with the team by sharing mutual trust so that the employees can effectively open up about the peak activity times and times when they go out of focus. This ensures the bonding with the entire team and can even increase the progress of the work. Being transparent helps promote an environment that is highly motivating for the employees, which helps them stay connected in the newly barged virtual atmosphere.

Chalking out the strategies!

When the team is not connected without the proper formulation of plan and strategies on how to move forward, it can seriously affect the entire organization’s merits and impact it deeply. When strategies are properly aligned, it becomes easier for the employees to actively align themselves to the allotted schedules and strategize their work. It will ensure that the employees execute their work correctly and the allotted tasks are met on time. People management is indeed a highly demanding element in any organization, and for the same reason, new management software like Lattice ensures that their employees do not appear like mere co-workers but upgrade themselves to top performers every month.

Managing the team effectively.

The managers are responsible for leading the team in any situation. Effective team management involves understanding their employees and guiding them to correct any errors and problems that are likely to arise. Communication is the ultimate bonding that has to be ensured with the employees. In this remote working style, staying connected via online platforms is the only support that the employees might be getting. So the manager must act pro-actively to ensure that proper guidance and all the needed support are made available to the employees at the time of need and actively contribute to the company’s success.

Monitoring productivity

Ensuring productivity is an added concern in recent times due to the newly adopted working style in the remote mode. Managers should know the different monitoring platforms by which they can easily access the activities of their employees. Distractions can be at a peak in the remote mode of working, and the employees can get impacted. Work Examiner has emerged as a remote team monitoring solution that can solve the problems associated with tracking productivity in their employees. It has been able to attract a large user base that uses this platform to monitor its employees. It can produce detailed reporting on the idle time and also help to block access to certain sites without informing the users that they are being watched. Using this software, the managers can easily get notified if the employees break any of the protocol’s provisions, and it can be useful for the manager to easily declare the best performer of the company actively!

Recognizing their efforts

Fighting with distractions and completing their work can be quite challenging. The managers can try to recognize their employees for the small milestones they achieve in the allotted work. It can help to boost their overall morale and confidence levels and can directly help them be more productive and start working more with vigor. Such compliments can make their day, and they will try to keep themselves on track, and the managers can effectively manage the team by guiding and encouraging them. So this method is one of the easiest compared to the rest due to the absence of any tracking software that had to be used to track them.

These are some of the guiding principles that might be useful for the team leaders to manage their team in the present scenario. In addition, many software to track productivity and people management are coming up and trying to make their entry into the market considering the remote ways of working.

Also Read: A Brief List Of Forex Brokers

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While video conferencing with distant colleagues is now almost part of everyday life, there are still many analog workflows in engineering. In particular, applications in which large amounts of data have to be processed are often not yet suitable for display in virtual meetings. Here augmented reality software creates a new solution environment.

Working together, regardless of location, on CAD models in AR

The augmented reality engineering space enables highly specialized engineers to use their sought-after knowledge much more efficiently.

In the process industry, for example, chemists and engineers work together very early on in process development. Together, they consider whether something that works on a small scale can also work in a process plant. The machine builder assembles the individual components and the plant builder ensures that everything fits together. Often separate and also very time-consuming processes.

At this point, the AR Workspace offers a collaborative environment to bring stakeholders together. Regardless of geographical distances, you can use AR glasses such as Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 for a virtual work session on an identical 3D object (for example a visualized system) and edit it together. All adjustments discussed in the working session or marked on the digital 3D model can then be seamlessly integrated into the corresponding tools of the other workflows.

New ways of visualization and collaboration

The AR Workspace thus serves as a meeting, work, and presentation platform. The automotive industry is already working on design reviews in this way. A design review in the form of an augmented reality session has the additional advantage that inconsistent details or easily overlooked construction errors of the model become more clearly visible and can be modified. Companies conserve their resources and make the production process more efficient.

Especially in times of social distancing, it is an absolute advantage to rely on a collaboration platform that enables your employees to continue working on important programs and projects in a risk-free manner and also across large geographical distances.

These benefits will not lose their effectiveness even after the current virus crisis has been overcome. What acutely helps to avoid productivity gaps can in the long term create the basis for more efficient collaboration and teamwork in the entire engineering workflow.

Also Read: Top Trends In Technology In 2020

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